Analysis and moving forward

A week has gone by since Cardiff and as you can imagine, I have spent a huge amount of time (two-hour drive to Falmouth helped this) going over what happened at Cardiff and how to improve the next half marathon experience which is looming in a weeks time.

This is what I have come up with

• Scrap the first two miles at a good pace plan (aka going out too quick!)
• Do not try for a PB at parkrun a week before – that was today and I didn’t and didn’t despite the new runner friendly route which has removed TWO hills
• Rest, all training is done, just rest – tomorrow I shall not be running, gently trot Monday and Wednesday planned and maybe a swim
• Get to the race start at five to 9 to avoid the pre run emotions that I get, being a local run I can sit in the car till kick off and chill. An anti-social start, but necessary.

This afternoon I spent sometime catching up on reading running magazines and came across this in Runner’s World magazine

‘Don’t base your happiness on your finishing time’

So very apt.

I then went on to study the Cardiff Half Stats.

I discovered I came 95th in my old ladies category, that’s 95th out of almost 500 old ladies.

I discovered I came 1852 female, that’s  out of 7103.

I discovered I came 7285 overall, out of 16114.

So right now I am not basing my happiness on last weeks finishing time, but on coming in the top fifth of old ladies! Not bad, not bad at all.